


we can live in love in slow motion

by gayyegg



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Grief/Mourning, I think?, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Todd-centric, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-22 18:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15587823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayyegg/pseuds/gayyegg
Summary: Everything had been so perfect with Neil’s hands on him, his smile directed only at him, curled up on the same bed, entwined for what Todd silently hoped was forever.But first loves never last, everyone seemed to know that but him.





	we can live in love in slow motion

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from 18 by one direction, which is a very anderperry song, don't change my mind  
> my english teacher in 11th grade once said that you don't ever finish stories/poems, you abandon them, and honestly thats a big mood right about now

The world had never seemed darker than in the wake of Neil’s death. Part of Todd knew that it was only because it had snowed, that the world was dark in the early morning, the hours were shorter because of the time of the year, but at the same time, none of it seemed right. Neil had been the light and Todd hadn’t truly noticed until he’d lost it.

Of course, he’d known Neil was something special. He was almost amazed that not everyone saw the incredible soul that was inside of Neil. It wasn’t like he hid it away, like Todd does, or covered it up in fake charm the way Todd was sure Charlie did; but instead he was just like that. Honest, and bright, and perfect. His perfect love, cut short with an imperfect ending.

The last months at Welton were horrible. Unbearable. Excruciating. Though the rest of the group was good about it, he knew that in their minds, Todd had no right to be as upset as he was. They’d all been his friends for years, known him growing up, and Todd had only been there for the final act, but God had the final act been incredible. However, for as good of friends as they all thought they were, they could never truly know how it had been between Todd and Neil. Everything had been so perfect with Neil’s hands on him, his smile directed only at him, curled up on the same bed, entwined for what Todd silently hoped was forever.

But first loves never last, everyone seemed to know that but him.  
So he was left behind, with a hole in his heart and an empty room.

Neil’s parents had taken his things out of the room about two weeks after he died. By then, Todd had grabbed the things he knew they wouldn’t miss for himself; a few pages of poetry that Neil had written, and a sweatshirt he’d left behind. Maybe it was wrong, but as Neil’s parents filed by him, he had a feeling that he missed him more than they did. They’d hardly known the real Neil anyway, not like he did. Watching them strip the room of Neil’s belongings while he studied silently at his desk, hearing Neil’s mother cry, he wanted to shout, scream that he’d loved him, that it was their fault he was gone, that they hadn’t known their son, and now they never would. He didn’t though, he stayed silent and finished his chemistry, trying to ignore the way Neil’s mother kept glancing at him.

As Mr. Perry took the bags of his son’s belongings outside, his mother stayed behind, before turning to Todd saying, “I brought this for you.”

That made Todd freeze. If there was anything to be brought, he’d assume it’d be for Charlie; someone that had known Neil longer. As he turned around, he saw his name written, in Neil’s slanted script, “Mr. Perry doesn’t know about it, and it’s probably better that way.” She said, urging him to take it quickly.

“Thank you,” he whispered, taking the paper into his hands and looking up at her, and for one moment, it was like they understood each other. She nodded and left to find her husband, leaving him alone again.

He didn’t open the letter.

He knew he should, and he wanted to, but he couldn’t. He knew what it was, and he wasn’t ready for the excuses he knew he’d hear. He couldn’t even look at the paper without imagining what happened after. His brain couldn’t picture seeing his love, his sweet undeserving darling, laying on the floor, bleeding and breathless, gun nearby, all the beautiful thoughts he’d had spilling out onto the carpet. He sometimes wonders what he thought just before. If he thought about the Society, or his family, or about Todd. It’s selfish, he knows. Todd wonders if he thought at all or just acted. Todd had seen him, through the car window, with the emptiest eyes he had ever seen, a stark dichotomy with the electric boy he’d seen on stage just moments before. His love, barely even himself. The image stayed stark in his mind, pushing the ones he wanted away, the ones of him laughing and bright, when Neil would smile at him and only him, they were fading faster.

He wished that after seeing him like that, that he had followed. Tried to help. Just see his love again, maybe stop him. He knew he wasn’t enough to fix everything that was weighing on Neil, and he clearly wasn’t enough to make it all worth dealing with for a bit longer. Neil had only had a little more time before he was eighteen. They could have made it. Neil had laid on his chest barely a week before and told Todd all about what he wanted, an apartment in New York, with a fire escape he could sit on and smoke, and maybe a cat, where he and Todd could be together without his father, or Mr. Nolan, or anything but their love. They were close. They could have ran away together.

He tried not to dwell on what could have been, but he couldn’t truly get over him. Like all lonely lovers, he turned to poetry.

By the time he finished Welton he had quite a compilation of poems, most of love lost, of the rush of a first love, of the emptiness he felt in his chest, how he felt the way Neil had looked when he’d last seen him through the window. He tried to focus on before, on the love, but it was hard. It was so hard to feel good again without Neil’s smile.  
But he would survive and live the life Neil didn’t get to.

-

It had been several years since he had lost Neil. He’d survived Welton, received a diploma he didn’t particularly want, went to Columbia and floated through it all, and as soon as as he was out he found Charlie again. Nuwanda was doing great, just graduated as well, and together they got a small apartment, soon filled with books and papers, a little messy but neat enough for them. The window’s didn’t latch right and the water heater was shit. Neil would have loved it. Together they managed the frankly horrible New York rent prices for two people who didn’t have proper jobs. Both worked in writing, Charlie focusing more on his “Great American Novel” while Todd stayed strong with his poetry, writing and editing and compiling until he had a collection of his favorites, his most honest poems, and after a few polite refusals, he managed to find someone willing to publish it.

It wasn’t going to be big, he knew that, and he didn’t want it to be. Nothing about their relationship had been big and loud, they had burned quietly but ferociously, the way Neil seemed to do most things. Quick, quiet, and with fervor.

Neil’s name was the dedication, though he’d never see it.  
Charlie was the first other than an editor to talk to him about it. He’d read a few of Todd’s poems, but most of what he remembered of his poetry had been from Keating’s class. He didn’t ask much, just if the love poems were real or if he had just wanted them to be. It seemed they had been better at hiding than Todd had assumed. Charlie didn’t seem as upset by the fact they were real as he’d expected. He was more concerned with the fact that Todd didn’t seem to have moved on yet.

Todd couldn’t seem to explain it. He wanted to move on, to be finished, but he couldn’t seem to, from death Neil was still holding him in a vise grip, whispering in his ear and caressing his cheek before disappearing again when the morning light spilled through.

Charlie had just coped differently, he’d managed it, and getting expelled likely made it a little easier, getting away from the ghosts left in the hallways and classrooms. Todd had been left behind opposite a bed stripped of sheets. They’d both lost so much, but it seemed that they had very different interpretations of grief. They all did. In their final meeting as the Society, it was like seeing a whole other group. No one seemed familiar, they were all at their worst, and their unofficial leader was gone. Todd had been glad afterward that no one but Neil had ever seen him truly open up, they’d only known him distant. They only would ever know him closed off.

Charlie admitted that he had known something was going on between them that was different from the way they were with the other boys, but he had just assumed it was a good roommate thing, since at the time he had the worst possible roommate, said, of course, with the same cheeky smile as just about everything else, and in that moment, Todd loved him.

The second person to give talk to him about his book was John Keating, through a fuzzy phone call. They didn’t talk much, the reception wherever he was not allowing for much, but it was good to hear from his mentor, hear the pride in his voice. It felt accomplished and hollow all at once. Mr. Keating was proud of his poems, but disappointed in the “hold on the past. You can never suck the marrow out of life if you’re holding onto bones that have turned to dust.”

He was right, but it didn’t seem like Todd could. There was something missing in allowing him to move on, something that hadn’t happened that would help life the ache in his chest, or the quiver in his voice when he talked about what had happened. Neil had taken something from him that it didn’t seem he’d ever get back, not if he didn’t know what it was.

-

Todd had figured that those were the only true feedback that he’d receive. He knew that the other Society members had heard of his book, he’d got a letter from Meeks expressing his excitement to read it, but that was all, and he truly didn’t mind that. He had the responses he wanted, and really the only ones he needed other than the technical ones focusing on word choice and prose.

But when he was alone with an angry Mr. Perry in his doorway, it was clear that he was to be given feedback whether he liked it or not. He addressed him politely, his voice quiet as ever, if not a little more shaken, though he hoped that it wasn’t noticeable (and he knew a useless hope when he had one), inviting him into the apartment and going to prepare some tea as Mr. Perry settled.

“I assume that you’ve come for a reason, likely concerning your son’s name in my dedication,” he said as he came back, focusing on delivering the statement as evenly as he could.

“You assume correct. I want his name out.” His voice was sharp as ever, and when Todd looked at him, setting down the mug in front of him, he could see that his eyes were just the same, if not hidden behind a few more wrinkles.

Todd sat carefully in one of Charlie’s chairs, eyes not straying from the couch. He had never been confident, and he couldn’t act well, but that didn’t mean he had to back down. “No,” he stated, recalling back to when he was so sure that Mr. Perry had shot Neil himself, feeling bad for the accusation, while at the same time, not truly against it. Neil wouldn’t have done it without a push, and he was looking right at the culprit. “It’s just his first name, and it’s my book of poems, he would have wanted it.”

The ending to the statement had Mr. Perry scowl, while it made Todd smile sadly to himself, barely there.

“He’s not here to say that. I want his name out, and I’m prepared to take legal action if necessary to ensure that no one ever sees your little love poems and associates them with my son. I already have the damage of a son who committed suicide, I do not need anyone thinking he was a queer too.”

Todd frowned now, sitting up a little straighter and shaking his head. “You couldn’t do that.”

“There are no bounds to what I could do.”

If Todd were still in high school, that would have scared him more than it did now. If he didn’t feel so numb lately, he likely would have tried to make that the end of the whole thing, this didn’t have to be an ordeal, but it looked as though he wasn’t the one making it one. “No, but you have no grounds. As I said, first name only, there is no true connection to your son outside of those that knew him. Not only that, but you would need evidence to support any claims you could make that your son wouldn’t have wanted this, and trust me, I knew him better than you.”

“He was my son,” Mr. Perry started, but Todd interrupted easily, his voice strong, “And he was my first love, _sir_ , and between the two of us, we both know he detested you.”

Mr. Perry was truly angry now, his shoulders stiff, and his tone clipped, “You will not say anything like that about my son again, do you hear me?”

“You could sooner move the ocean than you could ever make me quiet down or forget about what your son and I had. Please leave my apartment.” He was standing now, though he hadn’t realized, collecting the mug as though Mr. Perry had drank it. “You’re not welcome here.”

He remembered the Perry’s coming to collect Neil’s things, the anger he had felt then, the urge he’d had to scream and throw things and let them know how much he had loved him, compared to know, the resignation to the fact that even if they knew, they would never understand it. They had never understood their son, and in some ways it seemed that Todd didn’t either.

Hearing the door shut, he instantly lost his confident posture, his hands began shaking again, and he couldn’t help the dread that settled over him. He could only imagine how bad it must have been to have the man with a father. The two am crying he had heard from Neil on the few occasions he’d had to speak to his father, and the look through the window were slightly more empathetic now. Todd had always know that Mr. Perry was a horrible father, but he’d never experienced any of that anger faced his way.

It took a moment before he could regain his strength, pouring the tea in the sink and rinsing the mug as if to cleanse any of the energy Mr. Perry may have left near it. There was a clink in the sink as he set it down, before his feet carried him to his room, to the small desk in the corner that he used much more rarely than he knew he should. He could hear Charlie coming in through the door, humming to himself as he always did, never content with silence, as he sat for a moment.

His hands moved on their own accord to the bottom drawer, digging around for a moment before producing a paper, soft from being held too much, but never read, bent at the corners, with Todd’s name written in slanted script, and opened it for the first time.

**Author's Note:**

> i dont know what tone this is and i dont really want to reread it right now because i have to be up in three hours, so here it is  
> thanks for reading, kudos and comments are all loved, and if you want, come talk to me on tumblr @gayyegg


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